Except who cared?
None of it mattered now.
Not the view on Célie’s favorite park.
Not the shower that sat there, delivered and uninstalled, where she was supposed to have stood caught in sprays at the end of the day, washing the chocolate scent off her and maybe smiling at him through the glass or even wiggling her naked butt saucily, when he came in pretending he needed to brush his teeth, just so he could eye her.
Not the measurements for the marble counters, so that her own home kitchen could be a place that gave her as much pleasure to work in as that beautiful laboratoire. So that it became a place where they could maybe make supper … what was that word of hers? … together.
Not the wall-to-wall closet that he had been going to set into one bedroom wall, to maximize the space, so that her clothes and his clothes both fit in the bedroom. Together.
Definitely not the damn bed.
He slowly pulled out the little box. God, he’d loved the fancy jeweler’s name on it. Loved standing in front of the shop on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré and thinking, Yeah. Now I can get her this.
His chest ached.
His throat resisted all his efforts to swallow.
He rolled over and pulled his old battered duffle to him from the corner of the room, unzipping and unzipping, until he found what he wanted.
He pulled it out.
A cheap, slim ring with a stone so big because it was fake, cubic zirconium. The kind of ring a man bought when the words swam in front of him all the time at school, and the teachers thought he was stupid, and he had to take the mechanic track instead of anything that would let him go to university. When he was a good mechanic, he was good at it, he liked it, and he thought that was worth something, but then he got fired from his job because his closest friends were fucking drug dealers. When his father was a bumbling alcoholic who once, long ago, had seemed like a decent dad, and his mother was a bitter woman whose every word focused on how her husband or her son was failing or going to fail.
When the only bright spot in his whole world was the girl who ran out of her bakery apprenticeship with her eyes lighting up at the sight of him and some box held up filled with some precious pastry she had made and saved because she wanted to see his eyes light up, too.
When he would do anything, anything in the world, rather than become her failure. The man who didn’t live up to that bright hope in her eyes.
Anything, rather than become the man who sank into grimy nothingness and weighed down all her hope and let his kids grow up to the same gray, dull lack of future.
It was the kind of ring a man bought just before he said: No. No. I can’t give her this crap. I have to be more.
And if he was just turned twenty-one, and at heart desperately wanted to be the great romantic hero, went off and joined the Foreign Legion.
His throat hurt so bad. His hand fisted around the ring, and the damn thing was so cheap, he bent the setting of the fake diamond.
Anybody could see the other was better, right?
Anybody in the world could see that he’d done the right thing.
Except Célie.
And she was the only one who mattered.
He closed his eyes.
Five years of brutal effort and unstoppableness seemed to crash down on him all at once, and he turned his head into his arm, with the rings still clutched in either hand, there on the rotting, stained floor, and fell so solidly asleep it was like crashing into dark water.
Chapter 24
“I’ll never have the cuddle now,” Célie told the water dully. Not crying. She’d cried more the past week in public than in the past twenty-three years combined. Now grief weighed so heavy it had crushed even her tear ducts closed.
“I’m really sorry.” Jaime sat astride the wall of the canal, one foot dangling just above the water next to Célie’s. “I didn’t mean to create problems.”
“It’s not the job. It wasn’t the Foreign Legion either. He doesn’t have to stay smaller for me. But … he thinks he does. He thinks if he talks to me about it before he does anything, I’ll shrink him.”
Jaime grimaced, failing to find words. Yeah, because what words were there? No one wanted to be a guy’s idea of shrink-wrap on his dreams. “The cuddle?” she asked finally.
“You know.” Célie’s mouth drooped. She stared at the black water. “So you don’t have to hide behind your bed at night. So you can just relax into someone’s arms and be happy. It’s gone now. I’ll never have it.”
Jaime put her hand on Célie’s shoulder and squeezed gently.
Which was nice, but it wasn’t the same as a Joss squeeze. Not as big, not as strong, not as longed-for.
“I was so happy before he showed back up,” Célie said. “I was over him. I only ever even thought of him maybe a couple of times a day.”
A rueful, sympathetic glance from Jaime that seemed to suggest a couple of times a day was still a lot. Little did Jaime know.
“And now it’s going to be so hard.” Célie’s throat tried to strangle her, it tightened so much. Anger had given her the strength to shove him away so that she could go back to the cheerful, strong life she had built for herself. But now that the anger had subsided, she felt like a girl who had gotten rid of everything but spinach in her house in a determination to lose five kilos. Who the hell cared about five kilos? She didn’t want a life of spinach. She wanted chocolate.
“Célie,” Jaime said. “You’re underestimating that man of yours. He’s going to analyze his failure and then come about and get it right the next time. You’ll see.”
Weight settled down on Célie, heavier and heavier grief. Because even if she’d needed anger to give her the strength to make this purge, something much more serious than five kilos was at stake here.
“Don’t you get it? That just makes me the object of his plans again. I want to be the person who takes part in them. You know … together.”
***
The first postcard arrived at the shop the day Dom and Jaime came back. A stamp with a plumeria flower was on the corner of the envelope, inscribed République de Côte d’Ivoire, its postmark a week old. The address was in precise, square, careful handwriting, her name, c/o the shop address.
The card she pulled out of the envelope was of a palm tree over a sunset beach.
Célie. The long pause could almost be felt in the paper, in the heart that had been drawn over the I in her name, thickly layered with ink from a pen that had repeated it over and over, as its owner sought words. And then, I’m terrible at this. Joss.
A smile kicked through her despite everything. She stroked the deep impressions of the pen, made by a man who fought with pen and paper to get it to say what he wanted.
Dom, who had handed her the envelope with her name on it, eyed her a second, warily.
“I’m fine,” she lied. And, unable to resist, “How did it go?” For once, she could actually know something about what Joss did on those adventures he sought out without her.
“He’s got this covered.” It was clear by Dom’s expression that his impressions of Joss had undergone a radical transformation. “The way he moves. The way he assesses every situation and every person constantly and reacts exactly as fast as a situation needs, handling it immediately or taking his time to see what is developing. That control and steadiness coupled with instant reflexes and no energy spared to do what needs to be done. And he speaks the military language. They listen to him, and he gets their respect. My wife and all those cocoa farmers she cares about so much are all going to be safer because he’s there.”
So much pride swelled in her, to hear her much-loved, big-brother boss praise her boyfriend, that Célie bounced on her toes with it before it burst her.
Then she remembered he wasn’t her boyfriend.
Shit.
“Your wife?” she asked Dom, as saucily as she could manage.
He pointed a big finger at her. “Don’t you start.”
“What?” she exclaimed, and maybe Dom couldn’t tell how fake and forced the teasing sounded over her own empty heart. “It’s been a week! Didn’t you miss me?”
“I had your damn boyfriend to keep me company. Trust me, I’ve heard enough out of him about putting a ring on somebody’s finger. I think my own method is working out better for me in my relationship, thank you.”
Hey. If Dom and Joss were in a contest, Célie kind of wanted Joss to win. Except, of course … she stared at her bare left ring finger.
Damn it.
She went to make chocolates. Mint. Joss’s favorite.
Merde.
And maybe she did keep glancing out the casement window. But Joss never showed up to stand in his usual spot.
Leaning on the railing of her apartment window that night, gazing out at all the other millions of people in Paris, some of whom must have screwed up their chances of happiness, too, she thought for a moment she spotted him, leaning against a building down the street, looking up at her apartment. But he made no sign to her if it was him, and when the male body shifted from that spot and walked down the street away from her, she decided she must have imagined it.
Still the sight of that broad back leaving her farther and farther behind broke her heart.
The second card came the next day. A view of Abidjan at night, glowing glamorously against the water. Célie. The ink on the heart over the I in her name was so thick it almost couldn’t be recognized as a heart. Then, I miss you. Joss.
She stared at it a long time, that emotion that he had pulled out of himself and put down onto vulnerable paper. Then she hugged it to herself and placed it very carefully in a line at the back of the marble counter by the casement window. I would wait more than five years for you. I am terrible at this. I miss you. Joss.
But he still didn’t show up at the end of the day, and the next day, no cards came at all.
Her stomach knotted until even chocolate couldn’t sit in it. When she left work, she stared at the motorcycle, still parked where Joss had left it ten days ago, and then drove her little moped home. In the middle of the night, she had to sit between her bed and the wall again, arms wrapped around herself as tightly as she could hold.
Dom tossed two envelopes to her as soon as the mail came late the next afternoon. She grabbed them and carried them into the currently empty ganache room, opening them in order of postmark.
Célie. No heart over her name, the usually square handwriting angled, as if he’d written quickly. I know you told me to leave you alone. The thing is, you also made me promise not to do that ever again. So I … here’s my phone number. Just to make sure you have it. Joss.
She swallowed, around so many things stuck in her throat that she couldn’t get down.
She opened the fourth one. Célie. Her name underlined three times, a heart drawn over her name just once. Je t’aime. Joss.
She pressed the postcard to her chest and stood at the casement window, staring down at the empty street. It took her a long time to release that postcard and set it in the line with the others. I would wait more than five years for you. I am terrible at this. I miss you. Here’s my phone number. I love you. Joss.
Her fingers stroked that first postcard from Côte d’Ivoire, the words, I am terrible at this. It had made her smile over the deep twist of her heart, because it was so true. He was terrible at writing his thoughts and feelings down. It was just exactly like him. His true offer of himself: I am terrible at this. But I am going to try for you anyway.
Exactly like him.
Like, I’m going to screw this up, when she let him up into her apartment. This thing deep inside him, this conviction, that he would fail. A belief he shoved aside ruthlessly, refusing to allow it power over him: I won’t screw this up. I will get it right.
The mixed-up determination of a man who couldn’t offer the girl who was crazy about him a fake diamond ring.
She went to the window again.
And … there he was. She almost didn’t recognize him seated, his forearms braced on his knees, his shoulders slumped, his head bent. He didn’t look like her Joss at all.
***
Joss sat waiting again, a man they were probably going to arrest as a stalker. He didn’t stand in his usual spot but sat on some crates piled outside a store, gazing down at his linked hands, his thumbs pushing and catching at each other like miniature martial artists.
For the past two weeks, he’d done his job. That was what a Legionnaire did, after all—his job, no matter what. He’d gone to Côte d’Ivoire, with Jaime Corey and her overprotective boyfriend. Just watching Dom lay his arm over Jaime’s shoulders possessively felt as if Dom was carefully dropping stupid, sparkly flakes of that precious sea salt Célie liked so much into every single wound Joss had. And smiling in self-satisfaction at a job well done, when Joss clamped his jaw together to hide the agony.
But, in fact, Dom was probably just too damn blissfully content to think about his effect on Joss. Although he and Jaime both slipped Joss little bits of advice at every opportunity.
Most of which was probably good. A few of the officers in the Legion had good marriages, but he mostly only saw those when they were being performed—when the men were invited over for tea, for example. For real relationships, his most positive model had always been his own with Célie.
And given that they had been teenagers and he’d been trying to play the role of her brother’s friend instead of her lover, it was possible that he still had a lot to learn about relationships before he could get his own right.
God, he missed Célie. Like his own heart ripped out of his chest. Just as he always had.
When he’d ripped her heart out of her chest, five years ago, she’d still written him postcards. A dozen postcards, until she gave up. Cards. Writing. His worst possible form of communication.
He’d stared down at the first card he’d bought in Abidjan as if blank paper was a sleeping cobra. And then, as he had that day in the salon de chocolat, grabbed on to the one thing he knew was true: Célie.
Funny how, once that one word was set down on the paper and the paper failed to bite him, the rest of it came more easily. After only, say, twenty minutes of searching for the next word.
Stick with the truth. Even if it’s not good enough.
He wondered if she’d ever spent as long as he had, trying to figure out what to write to him. Skipping over all those other options like, You bastard and Why did you leave me? to a cheerful, encouraging We miss you here, but I know you can do it!
Postcards that were half a lie—she’d missed him far more than the cheerful little cards that so quickly dried up had ever let him understand—and half the truth—she truly wished the best for him, even so.
Célie came out slowly and hesitated a long time before she crossed the street to him. She looked as tired as he felt, as if someone had finally managed to put out the sparkles on the Eiffel Tower.
And that someone would be him.
“Hi,” he said to his thumbs, without trying for anything—not a kiss on the lips, not kisses on each cheek, nothing.
Célie sighed and braced. And then abruptly shoved a little metal box into his hands and folded her arms across her chest protectively.
He held the little flat box in his palm, staring down at it. It hurt so damn much, that gift of chocolates despite everything. And yet it made him breathe again. As if maybe there was still a little bit of life left in the world.
“Did you … get—”
Célie nodded, tightening her arms around herself.
He looked down at the chocolates again. He didn’t want to eat them. They might have to last him for a very long time. He looked up at her. “You, ah—you want to go for a walk?”
She kneaded her fingers into her arms.
“Just, you know—together. I’m working on the communicating.”
She swallowed and turned. But she only took a step down the sidewalk before she stopped and waited. So that must be an o
kay.
He stood and fell into step beside her. They walked through République to the canal. He flexed his hand a couple of times, uncertainly, and then extended it just a little.
She shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket.
His hand fell back to his side, hope deflating.
They walked until they could climb one of the footbridges. He leaned his forearms against the railing, locking his fingers together again. His thumbs fought with each other. Relentlessly, neither one willing to give up.
“It’s a good job,” he said finally, low. “It pays … a lot. And it’s something I’m interested in, and I can use my skills.”
She nodded and didn’t look at him.
“I—like that. I like knowing I can be good at what I need to do. I guess you were too much younger than me to know how crappy I was at school, when I couldn’t ever figure out what the texts said fast enough or what the teachers wanted from me. I like being good.”
“You’re good, Joss.”
She didn’t look at him when she said it, but the words still mattered. He took a breath. “But I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it. It seemed a straightforward decision. And I had, you know … that plan.”
Célie sighed, her own forearms on the railing, staring at the water. The fitted leather that was supposed to protect her on the moped and make her look tougher only served somehow to emphasize the smallness of her forearms, compared to the power carried so easily in his own, bare just beside hers. And yet she was very strong—those arms could knead bread all day, could whisk and mix and spread ganaches.
“It will take a while to get that apartment in shape. Maybe … you could take a look at it. See if you’d be interested in us working on it … together.”
She looked at him without turning her head. His right thumb slayed his left one, and then the left one popped back from the grave and wrestled his right one down.
“It’s important to you?” she said finally. “That I see it?”
All for You Page 24